FAQs

What is CloudCite?

CloudCite is a free, automatic, and ad-free bibliography generator for popular citation styles such as MLA 8th Edition, APA, Turabian, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, DIN 1505-2, and Chicago. CloudCite provides a clean, simple, and distraction-free environment for when you really need to create bibliographies and focus on research. CloudCite processes citations in the cloud so you never have to create citations manually again. Learn more about our commitment to a privacy and a distraction-free bibliography generation environment on our about page.

Why should I use CloudCite over other bibliography generators?

We decided to start the CloudCite project to offer a COMPLETELY free alternative to the other bibliography generators with a focus on productivity and usability. Our team's goal is to provide all of the features that people expect from a citation generation service with a simple workflow and clean user interface and without any distractions.

Unlike other citation generation services, CloudCite does not charge its users or schools to unlock features, additional citation styles, or to remove distractions such as advertisements.

CloudCite offers the following unique features:

Quick Cite - based on the main topics in your current bibliography, we suggest additional sources to quickly add to your bibliography

Source Analysis - we make sure you're using reliable sources

Switch - you can migrate existing projects and bibliographies by exporting projects from those solutions and importing them into CloudCite

Ad-Free - we leverage serverless deployment and client-side processing to lower our costs and provide this service WITHOUT any annoyances and distractions such as ads or pop-ups

No Paywalls - you DO NOT need to pay us to access basic features such as to use other citation styles such as APA, and Chicago/Turbian, to use our export options, or to remove distracting ads and pop-up videos you need to watch to access your citations.

Better Autofill - we use APIs to help us fill in crucial information so you don't have to do unnecessary manual work.

Focus on privacy and security preservation - We use SSL, TLS 1.3, HSTS, and a CSP policy to prevent unauthorized data access and manipulation.

100% Open Source - our entire codebase is open source under AGPLv3 and open to community feedback and contribution directly to our code.

Fast - we use HTTP/2.0 and Brotli Compression to serve you our website and a service worker to help quickly create bibliographies.

Is CloudCite reliable?

We use the same, reliable citation engine our major competitors use so you don't have to worry about inaccurate citations! CloudCite uses the over 9000 standardized citation styles maintained by the Citation Styles Language (CSL) project. CSL is used by bibliography generators including Cite This For Me, CitationMachine, BibMe, and EasyBib. Citations are generated by citeproc-js, a CSL citation engine.

Where is my bibliography stored?

Your bibliography is stored in a local database on your computer. As such, your bibliography will still be there after you close the window and when you return later. The bibliography will be cleared if you close a private or icognito session or if you clear your cookies on the browser. If you would like to save your bibliography on our servers, login and we will automatically sync the local database with our servers.

What is your privacy policy?

You can learn more about our privacy policy on our website. When you use our automatic citation fill, or autofill feature, your search query is sent to our API and third party APIs to find matching options and citation data on the option selected. Other than these API calls, we do not share any data with third parties. Your user data is stored securely on Auth0 servers and can only be accessed by our team. By default, your bibliographies are stored locally and cannot be accessed by others.